


Salmon

by askboo



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Implied Kissing Etc with Shitty and Rans and Holtzy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 10:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9887723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/askboo/pseuds/askboo
Summary: "You're not..." he says. "...sleeping with Ransom, are you?"Bitty puts his chin in his hand. "Only on statutory holidays," he says.(Or, when Jack mistakes Bitty for the Haus Bicycle)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I tried writing this through the POV of Jack's brain. It's a bit different. 
> 
> Let me know if you like it!
> 
> *A03 is playing tricks on me and posted this story a few times. To all those who kudos and bookmarked other versions, thank you!!

It begins on Saturday morning.

Jack sleeps in until 6:30, delaying his usual run by an hour. It's an indulgence he allows himself on the weekends.

He's in the process of locking his door, when he hears the door swing open behind him. He turns, expecting Bitty, something bright flaring to life in his stomach.

It's not Bitty. It's Ransom, who smiles at him sleepily. Ransom is coming out of Bitty's room with no shirt on. He scratches at his bare stomach, eyes puffy. He closes Bitty's door with a slow and quiet click, indicating Bitty is still asleep inside.

"Morning," Ransom says, voice hoarse. 

"Morning," Jack responds. He doesn't understand the sudden feeling of missing a step. "You're up early."

"Tutoring," Ransom explains, walking with him down the hall. "Professor Daniels got a group of remedial freshmen for me. 80 bucks each."

"Nice," Jack says, even though the feeling in him isn't nice at all. 

And even when he says goodbye to Ransom, goes down the stairs and out of the house, that shaken feeling stays with him. Even through his usual 10 K route and his stretching routine, it lingers. It feels like anxiety, but it's different - it's hurt, it's---

He doesn't know what it is.

*

Jack would have expected Ransom and Bitty to get handsier. He feels uncomfortable now, touching Bitty, and it's only by holding himself back that he realizes how often he usually tries to do it.

Except it's not Ransom, it's Holster.

Wednesday night, Jack is doing homework at the kitchen table. Bitty's almost always in there around that time, cooking dinner in quantities that will last him and the others until the following week. 

He's making chicken pot pie tonight, but this time, Holster is with him. 

Holster is helping him, learning from him, but also, he's touching him.

He's getting Bitty to laugh his sweet hiccoughy laugh, he's wrapping Bitty up in his arms and squeezing. At one point, he presses a kiss into the shaved side of Bitty's golden hair.

And Jack feels invasive, even though...even though this is usually something he does with Bitty himself.

It shouldn't feel weird, it shouldn't feel wrong. He shouldn't feel like something is moving away from him too fast.

He gathers his books and his laptop and goes up to his room, and his face gets hot when he hears Bitty laugh a moment later, as if he hadn't even noticed.

 

*

By Friday night, Jack feels like crawling out of his skin.

He doesn't drink at that Kegster, pouring cranberry gingerale into his solo cup so that nobody bothers him about it.

The living room is packed, the music pounding. Jack doesn't know where anybody is, except Bitty. 

Bitty has been drinking. Bitty has been dancing. He gets so loud when he's tipsy, filling the whole house with his sparkling energy. 

Right now he's on the couch, and he's in Shitty's lap, knees digging into the cushion on either side of Shitty's hips. He has one arm wrapped around Shitty's shoulders, his other holding his drink out over the back of the couch. 

When their lips meet, and Shitty bends Bitty all the way to the side, collapsing over him, Jack goes hot. 

Jack imagines himself doing a number of things. Things that include hurting his best friend.

Really, that upsets him more than anything.

He leaves the house. He calls his dad.

*

Shitty knocks on his door through the bathroom, in the afternoon when his hangover is gone.

Jack is sitting at his computer chair, and he looks over at Shitty without smiling. He doesn't feel like smiling. He keeps his eyes on Shitty until he sits down on Jack's bed, one leg drawn up. 

He's in his boxers, and Jack thinks about last week, with Ransom in the hall. He wonders if Bitty is sleeping in Shitty's bed. 

"You seem unhappy," Shitty says. He's probably the only person in the world, besides his parents, who would dare.

Jack turns his computer chair to face him. 

"I am unhappy," he says.

"Do you know why?"

Jack frowns, leaning his elbow on his knees. He stares at the floor for awhile, in thought.

"Bittle?" he ventures. It's the only thing all the bad moments this week have in common.

Shitty smiles, but he's not laughing at Jack. It's affection. "Are you asking me?"

Jack looks up at him and frowns at him instead. "You kissed him," he says.

"I did."

"And Holster the other day was...in the kitchen, with him? And Ransom came out of his room without a shirt on..."

Saying it out loud makes Jack suddenly question what exactly it was that he was seeing. How much of what he imagined was happening was real.

"Bitty and I were kissing as a joke," Shitty explains, reaching out to put a hand on Jack's knee. "We were drunk, it was stupid. And I happen to know for a fact that Rans and Bitty stay up playing Zelda in his room until like 2 AM sometimes. He probably fell asleep on the floor, and you know Bitty's not gonna wake him up and kick him out."

Jack reaches up and rubs the back of his neck. Something cool and refreshing is settling in him. Relief. "Okay," he acknowledges.

"And I dunno about Holtzy, but you know he loves Bitty like a little brother, he probably just--"

"No, I know," Jack says, and he sighs, rubbing his face. "You're right. I think I was just..."

Shitty waits. He never finishes Jack's thoughts for him, which Jack appreciates more than anything. 

A minute goes by.

"Jealous," Jack says finally, and takes a breath.

It feels good to find the word for the feeling that's been bothering him for a week. Maybe longer.

"Jealous," Shitty repeats, agreeing, like he already knew. He pauses again, and then: "You should talk to him."

*

Bitty is out on the roof, suntanning on a blanket. He's got a big bottle of ice water next to him and a plate of crackers. He's wearing sunglasses and jean shorts and his salmon pink converses. 

Jack smiles at him out the window, wondering how someone so severely hungover could look so adorable.

"Bits?" he said, climbing carefully out of the window and on to the roof.

Bitty lifts his head, squinting at Jack, and then he smiles, sitting up.

"Hey," he says, making room on the blanket. He reaches for his water bottle and takes a big sip, the ice tinkling.

Jack settles on the blanket with his knees drawn up, arms hanging over. "Feel any better?"

"Agh," Bitty says, rubbing his face with one hand. "Kinda."

"You know the sun doesn't help. The dehydration--"

"I know, I know," Bitty laughs. "You didn't come out here to lecture me, did you?"

"No," Jack says softly, and now he goes quiet. He knows he needs to talk to Bitty but he doesn't know exactly what to say.

"You're not..." he says. "...sleeping with Ransom, are you?"

Bitty puts his chin in his hand. "Only on statutory holidays," he says.

Jack sighs out a laugh. He reaches out and puts Bitty's sunglasses on the top of his head, so he can see his expression. 

He's smiling, but his eyes are a little more serious, searching Jack's face.

"Are you involved with anyone on the team?" Jack asks.

"Are you asking as a captain or as my friend?" Bitty asks cautiously. "Because--"

"Your friend," Jack says quickly, and without thinking he takes Bitty's hand. "I just...it seems lately like everyone...has been...I don't know. Touching you, or--"

Bitty's thin brows are pulled down. Thinking. Confused. "Have they?"

"Maybe I'm just now noticing that everyone wants you," Jack says, and his face is going hot again, but it's different. "And I just thought...what I want to say is that, I'm. I'm okay with you dating guys on the team if it's what you want, but I'd...I'd prefer if it was me."

Bitty is blinking at him. He stares for a long time. Then, slowly, without taking his eyes off Jack, he gropes sideways for his phone.

"Are you--you're not tweeting that!"

"I'm not," Bitty says, and he glances down at his phone. "Sorry, I just have to cancel my long-standing threesome with Ollie and Pacer."

Jack knocks the phone out of his hand. "Bittle, that's not funny."

Bittle smiles, and he's slowly going pink. He shifts closer and puts both of his small, warm hands on Jack's cheeks. "I've been crazy about you for a year and a half," he says. "If you want me, I'm only yours."

Jack searches Bittle's face for some sign of a joke. When he doesn't see one, he leans in and catches Bitty's mouth, swallowing the joyful sound he makes.

His heart is up in his throat. But it feels good.

**Author's Note:**

> I only wrote this fic so I could make the stat holiday joke.


End file.
